Attack Down

After several back-and-forth exchanges, the Ant Nest's forces began to show signs of exhaustion. At the same time, however, the Mother Nest's Scout Worker Ants had completely depleted their reserves of formic acid solution.

Rowan, who had been observing the battle from the sidelines for quite some time, finally entered the front lines. His massive physique was several times larger than that of a Soldier Ant. With the coordination of the other insects, he moved across the battlefield like a bulldozer, crashing through everything in his path.

It wasn't that he was a coward—well, perhaps he had been a little timid at the very beginning.

With his current size, he was an easy target for concentrated fire on the battlefield.

As his size increased, while his strength, constitution, and other attributes had been greatly enhanced, his ability to deal with small targets had been significantly weakened due to his body structure. His back, in particular, was a blind spot for defense.

If too many Ant Nest Scout Worker Ants swarmed him, he wouldn't be able to defend himself; if those creatures managed to climb onto his back, he really had no good way to deal with them.

His entire body was covered in hard chitinous armor, which these small combat units couldn't penetrate. Only his large, bulbous eyes lacked necessary protection, and the mandibles of the Scout Worker Ants could easily damage them.

When the Mother Nest squad had besieged the Cliff Spider, those Scout Worker Ants had crawled directly into the spider's body through its wounds. As the Ant Nest Scout Worker Ants shared the same basic template, he assumed they knew this trick as well.

He had no desire to experience the same fate as that spider.

Furthermore, his side currently held the advantage in numbers, so there was no need for him, the commander, to charge into the fray.

Thus, during the intense early stages of the battle, he had stayed back, occasionally decapitating a few returning Scout Worker Ants.

But now, as the intensity of the battlefield subsided, he finally felt he could indulge himself, his blood already boiling with excitement.

Several Scout Worker Ants climbed onto his back armor to protect it, preventing any Ant Nest Scout Worker Ants from sneaking up on him. Dozens more followed at his feet, guarding his legs and intercepting enemies approaching from both sides...

Behind him, several Soldier Ants followed to defend his rear...

Therefore, Rowan only needed to face the enemies directly in front of him.

Although his two large eyes were a weak point in his defense, the ultra-high refresh rate they provided made the dodging maneuvers of the enemy Scout Worker Ants and Soldier Ants look like a joke before him.

His mandibles precisely clamped onto the thorax and abdomen of a Scout Worker Ant. With a slight exertion of force, the two severed halves fell from either side of his closed mandibles.

He extended a leg, reaching out toward another Scout Worker Ant with lightning speed.

The adhesive hairs on the small tarsus at the tip of his leg spread out, and as the leg retracted, it dragged the Scout Worker Ant back.

With a snap of his mandibles, he decapitated it, then flicked his leg, casually tossing the body still stuck to his claw aside.

Now, facing opponents who were several levels below him, he could dispose of them with a mere flick.

Rowan worried that if things continued this way, his special talent, Rowan's Combat Technique, might fall into disuse due to a lack of practice.

Fortunately, at that moment, another Ant Nest Soldier Ant charged toward him. Given its size, it was just enough to serve as a test for his technique.

And so, he met it head-on with the opening stance of Rowan's Combat Technique.

Gradually, no new reinforcements emerged from the Ant Nest entrance. The Ant Nest forces on the surface, having lost their support, were quickly isolated and wiped out.

Rowan flicked his antennae, and pheromones carrying new instructions permeated the air. The Scout Worker Ants guarding his legs dispersed.

A moment later, a strike team of over a dozen Soldier Ants charged into the Ant Nest entrance, followed by hundreds of Scout Worker Ants providing support.

At the same time, several standby units underground received word from a Scout Worker Ant messenger, and they all acted upon Rowan's new orders.

In the underground sections of the Ant Nest, multiple tunnels were breached, revealing several Excavator Ants that quickly widened the openings. Soon after, large numbers of Scout Worker Ants, led by Soldier Ants, surged into the tunnels.

In an instant, several Mother Nest units were slaughtering their way into the Ant Nest from different directions.

The Ant Nest's viable forces had long since been exhausted. The remaining stragglers were incapable of mounting an effective resistance, not to mention that their Ant Queen was already dead, leaving them without a commander and fighting individually.

Soon, the various Mother Nest units converged in the Ant Nest's Hatching Room. Under Rowan's command, some Soldier Ants took small groups of Scout Worker Ants and dispersed to scout the branching tunnels, checking for any survivors.

Meanwhile, large numbers of Scout Worker Ants rushed into the Hatching Room to begin hauling away the spoils. The food scraps here had been carefully ground down by the worker ants, making them easy to consume and excellent ingredients.

In addition, the insect eggs, pupae, and larvae were all high-quality protein that could be recycled and reused.

By midnight, the Scout Worker Ant transport teams were still shuttling between the underground tunnels and the battlefield, the two-way flow of ants forming two orderly, straight lines.

As for Rowan, the supreme commander of this battle, he felt he had done his duty and had long since returned to his own chamber to rest.

Post-battle statistics indicated that the Ant Nest's five thousand members were almost entirely wiped out, save for a few Scout Worker Ants that had been too far away to return. These few stragglers were negligible and not worth worrying about.

Due to excellent tactical command, the Mother Nest had only lost a few hundred Scout Worker Ants and about twenty Soldier Ants. Rowan couldn't be bothered to count the exact numbers; for one, he was the only one in this massive Mother Nest who knew how to count. As the supreme commander, a rough estimate was enough, and no insect would blame him for not being precise.

Secondly, the insect corpses—missing limbs, heads, both enemy and his own—were all piled together. It was only possible to make a rough judgment based on residual pheromones, making an exact count impossible.

The next morning, Rowan looked at the still-busy Mother Nest and made some modifications to his original combat plan.

The goal of destroying one Ant Nest every day was temporarily postponed, as Rowan hadn't had a concrete concept of post-battle logistics. First and foremost, the Scout Worker Ants' formic acid solution reserves would take several days to recover.

Formic acid solution could blind and burn enemy units over a large area, making it an excellent auxiliary tool in war. However, every time the reserves were depleted, it took a long time to replenish them.

The harvest from wiping out an entire Ant Nest was significant, and the Mother Nest needed time to consume it. The area was close to the lake, and the high humidity made food preservation difficult. If he destroyed four Ant Nests in a row, it would lead to a massive accumulation of food that might spoil if not consumed in time.

The insects in the Mother Nest were creations of the Mother Nest itself, and the Mother Nest shared an unspeakable, intimate connection with Rowan. One only had to see how Rowan's pheromone commands were treated like imperial edicts to understand just how close that relationship was.

Therefore, no insect would jump out to oppose anything Rowan decided.

Thus, the Mother Nest forces suspended their plan to attack the remaining Ant Nests and entered a period of short-term rest and reorganization.